The Roman Search for Wisdom by Michael K. Kellogg

Author:Michael K. Kellogg
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781616149260
Publisher: Random House Publisher Services
Published: 2017-01-12T16:00:00+00:00

When he is back again with her, she will take

his shield from his body, his helmet

from his head and then at last she will welcome

his weary flesh to her warm embrace.71

Yet, unbeknownst to her, Protesilaus was the first Greek warrior to jump from his ship and onto Trojan soil and (pursuant to a prophecy) the first to die, as well. When she learned of his death, Laodamia grieved with such passion that the god of the underworld allowed Protesilaus to return to her for three hours, at the end of which she killed herself in order not to be parted from him again.

Contrasted with these lawful wives is the slave girl, Briseis, who sparked the quarrel around which the Iliad is composed. Briseis was the daughter of a king allied with the Trojans. When the Greeks sacked her city and killed her father, her husband, and her brothers, she was awarded as a prize to Achilles. Agamemnon, leader of the Greek forces, seized her in turn when he was compelled to return his own prize, Chryseis, to her father, a priest of Apollo. With Achilles in high dudgeon, sulking in his tent, the Trojans had the advantage in battle and drove the Greeks back to their ships. But emissaries from Agamemnon, offering to return Briseis along with many other gifts, failed to move Achilles. Briseis's letter is written after the emissaries’ return. Its interest lies in the psychology of the princess turned slave. Achilles has become all to her:

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